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This documentation is sourced from a third-party project and is not maintained by pgEdge.

Installation Notes - Linux and Mac

Postgres Location

If your machine has multiple Postgres installations, specify the path to pg_config with:

export PG_CONFIG=/Library/PostgreSQL/17/bin/pg_config

Then re-run the installation instructions (run make clean before make if needed). If sudo is needed for make install, use:

sudo --preserve-env=PG_CONFIG make install

A few common paths on Mac are:

  • EDB installer - /Library/PostgreSQL/17/bin/pg_config
  • Homebrew (arm64) - /opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@17/bin/pg_config
  • Homebrew (x86-64) - /usr/local/opt/postgresql@17/bin/pg_config

Note: Replace 17 with your Postgres server version

Missing Header

If compilation fails with fatal error: postgres.h: No such file or directory, make sure Postgres development files are installed on the server.

For Ubuntu and Debian, use:

sudo apt install postgresql-server-dev-17

Note: Replace 17 with your Postgres server version

Missing SDK

If compilation fails and the output includes warning: no such sysroot directory on Mac, reinstall Xcode Command Line Tools.

Portability

By default, pgvector compiles with -march=native on some platforms for best performance. However, this can lead to Illegal instruction errors if trying to run the compiled extension on a different machine.

To compile for portability, use:

make OPTFLAGS=""